11 - ] Model SAT Tests - Test Eleven

11- ] Model SAT Tests

Test Eleven

Read the passage below , and then answer the questions that follow the passage . The correct response may be stated outright or merely suggested in the passage .

The following excerpt is taken from “Life on the Rocks : the Galapagos” by writer Anne Dillard . Like Charles Darwin, originator of the theory of evolution . Dillard visited the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific . In this passage she muses on the islands  , on Darwin , and on the evolutionary process .

            Charles Darwin came to the Galapagos in 1835 , on the Beagle ; he was twenty-six . He threw the marine iguanas as far as he could into the water : he rode the tortoises and sampled their meat . He noticed that the tortoises’ carapaces varied widely from island to island ; so also did the forms of various mockingbirds . He made collections . Nine years later he wrote in a letter , “I am almost convinced ( quite contrary to the opinion I started with ) that species are not ( it is like confessing a murder ) immutable . “In 1859 he published On the Origin of Species , and in 1871 The Descent of Man . It is fashionable now to disparage Darwin’s originality ; not even the surliest of his detractors , however , faults his painstaking methods or denies his impact .

            It all began in the Galapagos , with these finches . The finches in the Galapagos are called Darwin’s finches : they are everywhere in the islands , sparrowlike , and almost identical but for their differing beaks . At first Darwin scarcely noticed their importance . But by 1839 , when he revised his journal of the Beagle voyage , he added a key sentence about the finches’s beaks : “Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small intimately related group of birds , one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago , one species had been taken and modified for different ends .” And so it was .

            The finches come when called . I don’t know why it works , but it does . Scientists in the Galapagos have passed down the call : you say psssssh psssssh psssssh psssssh until you run out of breath : then you say it again until the island runs out of birds . You stand on a flat of sand by a shallow lagoon rimmed in mangrove thickets and call the birds right out of the sky . It works anywhere , from island to island .

            Once , on the island of James , I was standing propped against a leafless palo santo tree on a semiarid island slope , when the naturalist called the birds .

            From other leafless palo santo trees flew the yellow warblers , speckling the air with bright bounced sun . Gray mockingbirds came running . And from the green prickly peat cactus , from the thorny acacias, sere grasses , bracken and manzanilla , from the loose black lava , the bare dust , the fern hung mouths of caverns or the tops of sunkit logs - came the finches . They fell in from every direction like colored bits in a turning kaleidoscope . They circled and homed to a vortex , like a whirlwind of chips ,like draining water . The tree on which I learned was the vortex . A dry series of puffs hit my cheeks . Then a rough pulse from the tree’s thin trunk met my palm and rang up my arm - and another , and another . The tree trunk agitated against my hand like  a captured cricket : I looked up . The lighting birds were rocking the tree . It was an appearing act : before there were barren branches : now there were birds like leaves .

            Darwin’s finches are not brightly colored ; they are black , gray , brown , or faintly olive . Their names are even duller : the large ground finch , the medium ground flinch, the small ground finch ; the large insectivorous tree finch : the vegetarian tree finch ; the cactus ground finch , and so forth . But the beaks are interesting , and the beaks’ origins even more so .

            Some finches wield chunky parrot beaks modified for cracking seeds . Some have slender warbler beaks , short for nabbing insects , long for probing plants . One sports the long chisel beak of a woodpecker ; it bores wood for insect grubs and often uses a twig or cactus spine as a pickle fork when the grub won’t dislodge .They have all evolved , fanwise , from one bird .

            The finches evolved in isolation . So did everything else on earth . With the finches , you can see how it happened . The Galapagos islands are near enough to the mainland that some strays could hazard there : they are far enough away that those strays could evolve in isolation from parent species . And the separate islands are near enough to each other for further dispersal , further isolation , and the eventual reassembling of distinct species . ( In other words , finches blew to the Galapagos , blew to various islands , evolved into differing species , and blew back  together again . ) The tree finches and the ground finches , the woodpecker finch and the warbler finch,veered into being on isolated rocks . The witless green sea shaped those beaks as surely as it shaped the beaches . Now on the finches in the palo santo  tree you see adaptive radiation’s results , a fluorescent spray on horn . It is as though an archipelago were an arpeggio , a rapid series of distinct but related notes . If the Galapagos had been one unified island , there would be one dull note , one super dull finch .    

1 . Dillard’s initial portrayal of Darwin ( lines 1 - 3 ) conveys primarily a sense of his

(A) methodical research

(B) instant commitment

(C) youthful playfulness

(D) lack of original thought

(E) steadiness of purpose

2 . From lines 4 - 7 one can conclude that Darwin originally viewed species as

(A) unchanging  (B) original  (C) ambiguous  (D) evolutionary  (E) indistinguishable

3 . In the phrase “It all began in the Galapagos” paragraph two , the underlined word“It”  refers to the origins of

(A) sentient life

(B) distinct species of creatures

(C) Darwin’s theory of evolution

(D) controlled experimentation

(E) Darwin’s interest in nature

4 . The underlined word “ends” at the end of paragraph two means

(A) borders (B) extremities (C) limits (D) purposes (E) deaths

5 . The use of the phrase “run out” two times in paragraph three emphasizes the

(A) waste of energy

(B) difference between the actions of humans and birds

(C) impatience of the naturalists calling the birds

(D) nervousness of the author in strange situations

(E) overwhelming response of the birds

6 . The underlined word “lighting” in paragraph five means

(A) illuminating (B) landing (C) shining (D) weightless  (E) flapping

7 . The pulse that Dillard feels in paragraph five is most likely

(A) the agitated beating of her heart

(B) the rhythm of the birds’ touching down

(C) the leaping of crickets against the tree

(D) a painful throbbing in her arm

(E) the wind of the birds’ passing

8 . Dillard’s description of the finches in paragraph seven [ Some finches -----]serves chiefly to

(A) contrast their overall drabness with their variety in one specific aspect

(B) illustrate the predominance of tree finches over ground finches

(C) emphasize the use of memorable names to distinguish different species

(D) convey a sense of the possibilities for further evolution in the finch family

(E) distinguish them from the warblers and mockingbirds found in the islands

9 . Paragraph seven suggests that the finches’ beaks evolved in ways that 

(A) mimicked a fanlike shape

(B) protected the birds from attack

(C) captured Darwin’s interest

(D) enhanced the birds’ attractiveness

(E) enabled them to reach nourishment

10 .  The underlined word “hazard” means

(A) venture (B) speculate  (C) be imperiled  (D) run aground  (E) develop

11 . The underlined “fluorescent spray of horn” referred to by the author is most likely 

(A) a series of musical notes

(B) a flock of birds

(C) the birds’ shiny beaks

(D)branches of the palo santo tree

(E) a primitive musical instrument

12 . In the final paragraph , the author does all of the following EXCEPT

(A) restate an assertion

(B) make a comparison

(C) define a term

(D) refute an argument

(E) describe a sequence of events